‘Dr Carey had these sent over from his office this morning,’ he was saying, tapping a slim buff folder he’d brought in with him. He looked up as first Barbara Loveday, and then her husband Frank, pushed into the kitchen. He rose with a smile and greeted them in order.

‘Mrs Loveday, Mr Loveday, I hope you don’t mind me dragging your daughter off to work early. There have been developments in the fatality we’re looking into.’

Trudy’s mother wanted to know if he’d had breakfast, and in spite of the fact that he had, still asked if he’d like some scrambled eggs on toast. Frank Loveday cast him a knowing smile as he fended her off, and headed for the kettle. This he refilled and set to boiling.

It took a while, but eventually Trudy was able to extract herself and Dr Ryder from her parents’ understandable but rather persistent questioning about their latest investigation, and once they were out of Botley, she was able to relax a little.

She read the toxicology report as Clement drove very slowly and in fits and starts to accommodate other drivers who were finding their brakes all but useless. By the time they were approaching the police station – the Rover slipping and sliding a bit more than either one of them would have liked – she had finished absorbing them and had tucked the papers neatly back into the file.

‘As you said, once the inspector reads this, he’s going to assign it to someone else,’ she told him gloomily. ‘Probably Sergeant O’Grady, when he’s back from sick leave.’

‘Hmmm. I’ve had a thought about that,’ Clement said, pulling the car to a very slow and tentative halt. The front bumper nosed its way rather too deeply into a snowbank, but he didn’t think it would be enough to prevent him from being able to reverse back out of it.

He turned to look at his young friend, knowing he was going to have to be rather canny about this. Trudy might want to go on investigating what they now regarded as ‘their’ case as much as he did, but she was duty-bound to keep her superior officer informed. And her strong sense of loyalty would have to be handled tactfully if he was to squeeze any more wriggle room out of the situation. ‘I promised Dr Carey, my contact in pathology, that I would inform the police about this right away.’ He nodded at the folder she still held. ‘And so I have. You’re the police, right?’

Trudy looked at him and began to smile as she understood what he was intimating. Then she sighed heavily, the smile falling from her face as fast as it had arrived. ‘It’s no good,’ she said glumly. ‘I’ve got to tell the inspector.’